A roommate shows me this hookup app - the consensus favorite.

“Call me crazy,” I say, “but if we’re reducing *** to something
cheap and cynical, wouldn’t **** be safer and easier?”

She frowns, as if I’ve espoused an unpopular political position
so I make a show of putting “join the app” on my to-do list
- which is like sending it into outer space.

Sleeping with someone you don’t like - or even know, seems impolite, even seedy but there’s a power to it as well - knowing I could if I wanted to - I quash that thought as it rises, like heat.

Besides, factoid: I have an imaginary boyfriend, And although my thoughts are free to roam far and wide, I’m nothing if not faithful.

We were calculating theoretical yields on chemcollective
and somehow we ended up dancing to ”go left.”

We were finding oxidation numbers on labster
but somehow we started laughing.

We were balancing chemical equations on PhET
but now we’re singing “World we created” with hair-bush microphones.

Believe your competence - be impressed with your progress.
Attack every challenge with self-contained ease.
Armor yourself with confidence.
You’ll like the way you enjoy it.

They think I'm joking

Those pills

                     That ledge

                                          The blades

All for their amusement because even while I'm dying I'm still a joke to you

I lay awake
hour after hour
while you did the same
in the very next room.

You've told me before just
how apprehensive you become
when the page is empty
and the stakes are high.
You have high hopes,
but when you bade me
"good night and sleep well"
I did see the flicker
of doubt-insomnia-excitement
hiding just behind your tired smile
like a candle in the wind.

It is near impossible to sleep
when you lie awake,
when love lies awake
in the next room.

But I am a coward,
afraid of losing you
long before I can call you mine.
And so I while away the hours
wondering if you want me
to walk down the passage
and crawl into your bed
just as much as I do.

We lie awake instead,
praying that sleep takes us
and carries us across the boundary
separating yesterday and tomorrow.
To take you to a bright tomorrow
me; into another lovesick Monday.
But sleep evades us
It is near impossible to sleep
when I know you lie awake
and love lies awake
in the very next room.

You are only friends with me when it is convenient for you
Ignore me every day
Come into our room and stay quiet
Coinhabitants; living but not talking
I know if it weren't for living together
you wouldn't want me around

We once were friends
now I think you barely can stand to be around me
What a shame

I remember the way you jumped into my arms
and declared that you were my roommate
when we stood in my old bedroom

Now I stand here deciding
stay or go?

The worst things about college
is living with someone
who was once your friend
but is no longer

Once we were friends
happy to be in each other's company
but now she doesn't speak to me
even though we inhabit the same space

I go through my day
being the same as before
but they ignore me and keep their heads down
when I pass them in the hall or on the way to class

I live in a space
where I am not wanted
I live in a space
where people talk around me
I live in a space
where girls talk about me when I'm not around

I wish I could leave
but there is still 56 days left in the semester
44 days since the fall out that changed my college life forever
That time has gone quickly
but was not without distress or misery
Will these 56 go by faster? I can hope